By OSU News Service and Oregon Public Broadcasting
CORVALLIS – Jayathi Y. Murthy, a national leader in higher education engineering teaching, research and service, and advancing diversity, equity and inclusion, was announced Tuesday as Oregon State University’s next president.
Murthy, 64, who has served as the dean of the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science since 2016 and previously worked at several other top engineering universities and in the private sector, will become OSU’s 16th president Sept. 9. She will succeed Becky Johnson, who has served as OSU’s interim president since May 1, 2021, and will remain OSU’s president through Sept. 8.
Oregon State’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously Tuesday morning to approve Murthy’s appointment and a five-year employment agreement to lead the state’s largest public university.
“We are very pleased to welcome president-elect Murthy to Oregon State University,” said Kirk Schueler, chair of OSU’s Board of Trustees. “Dr. Murthy is the right person and leader to guide this remarkable university that is enjoying tremendous momentum. Under Dr. Murthy’s leadership, OSU’s incredible impact in Oregon, nationally and globally, and the university’s commitment and progress in advancing diversity, equity and inclusive excellence will grow.”
Murthy is the first woman of color to lead OSU.
“This is the right place and right time,” Murthy said. “I am very impressed by Oregon State University. OSU is well-positioned to address the many challenges in how higher education will be best provided in the years ahead thanks to the university’s excellent faculty, staff and leaders, and its commitment to student success, inclusive excellence and its long experience and leadership in online education.”
Murthy was a finalist for the job with Charles Martinez, dean of the College of Education at The University of Texas at Austin. He previously worked in Oregon for more than two decades, holding various positions at the University of Oregon.
Murthy and Martinez both visited OSU’s main campus in Corvallis late last month to interact with the campus community, in an attempt from the board of trustees to lead a more open and transparent search process.
That’s a pivot from the last presidential search in which candidates were kept confidential. That closed process resulted in the hiring of OSU’s previous president, F. King Alexander, who ended up resigning amid criticism about mishandled sex abuse allegations among the football team at Louisiana State University.
Murthy wants to grow programs, creativity
Murthy praised OSU for its growing national and global research prominence and its contributions to Oregon communities statewide through OSU Extension and engagement programs.
“Oregon State University is widely recognized in all things related to climate science and resilience, and also in trans-disciplinary research related to AI, robotics, natural resources, clean energy, public policy, public health and the social sciences,” she said. “This is the time to think big and do big things. I am confident that OSU can be a national leader in the post-pandemic era.”
Murthy said OSU can grow faculty research, scholarship, creativity and innovation by continuing to hire and retain excellent faculty.
“We also will invest even more in research infrastructure. We will support individual research investigators in their efforts to expand their research activities. And we will grow our work with federal and state leaders and agencies, and private sector businesses, to significantly expand large-scale and collaborative OSU research.
Murthy was the first woman dean at UCLA’s engineering school, which has 190 faculty members and more than 6,000 undergraduate and graduate students. During her tenure, she made expanding access to a UCLA engineering education a top priority. This includes deepening relationships with local community colleges, increasing outreach to underrepresented minority groups and easing the transition for transfer students.
She underscored her intention to advance OSU’s commitment to inclusive excellence among students, faculty and staff.
“Advancing diversity, equity and inclusion is a deeply held conviction of mine and is central to my work as an educator and administrator,” Murthy said. “As an engineer, I have often been the only woman in the room since I was 16.”
Murthy said the university will advance inclusive excellence by providing access to college for all learners and providing students enrolled on campus and online with strong student support services, including advising, internships, mentoring and financial assistance for those with need.
“I do not believe in exclusivity or in excluding certain students,” she said. “That’s not the future I see for OSU. I see broad access for all qualified learners.”
Before joining UCLA, Murthy was chair of the mechanical engineering department at the University of Texas at Austin and held the Ernest Cockrell, Jr. Memorial Chair in Engineering from 2012-2015. Prior to that, Murthy was a mechanical engineering professor at Purdue University from 2001-2011 and served as a professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh from 1998 to 2001.
Murthy began her career at Arizona State University, where she was an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering from 1984 to 1988. From 1988 to 1998, Murthy worked at New Hampshire-based Fluent, Inc., a developer and vendor of the world’s most widely used computational fluid dynamics software. She has authored over 330 technical publications.
Murthy received a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the University of Minnesota, a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Washington State University and a bachelor’s of technology degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, where she was named a distinguished alumna in 2012.
Murthy is married to Sanjay Mathur, an aerospace engineer who works at SparkCognition, a firm specializing in artificial intelligence systems and development.
